What is considered best navigation suite?

[Franziska]

Hey Sue,

could you please share details on the screen you are using?

How many Gb charts and how do you serve them to the Raspberry?

Do you know if the Pi would get confused by two identical touchscreens (we have a catamaran) ?

Thanks,

Franziska (another big fan of OpenCPN)

Originally Posted by SalingSue

Raspberry pi opencpn below decks, with a mil spec touchscreen at the helm wired to the pi

[Offshore1960]

Big fan of Furuno equipment over the years, especially their radars. Super reliable and great product support. Running a nav software program like Nobletech or Rose Point on a laptop is a great supplement. I always carry paper charts and redundant position source equipment. Been a big fan of Standard Horizon VHF radios and Icom or Furuno SSB's.

Had some really bad experiences with Simrad gear that came with a previous boat. I wouldn't give you .50 cents for any of it or B & G either for that matter.

[garychurch]

For those using smart devices to determine GPS position, please realize these devices rely on cell phone tower reception to supplement cellular device accuracy.

Without cell tower reception on these devices the accuracy of you position is degraded, regardless of the number of iPads and iPhoned you may have.

Buy a supplemental GPS receiver like Bad Elf ( it can hook up to 5 devices with Bluetooth ). Bad Elf not only receives US GPS but Russian GLONASS and a US FAA differential signal known as WAAS. This guarantees high accuracy anywhere for your smart devices.

Good luck.

[BMD21]

I've been using Lowrance displays with their 3G radar as well as their depth sounder and NMEA 2000 bus. All worked fine for the last 8 years. Uses both Navionics and C-Map charts. It is the best featured and cheapest. And for me, it's reliable.



The 3G radar is solid state, so low power and instant on. Gets near targets, such as buoys and piers. The best feature is the radar transmits its data on ethernet so I can run an ethernet hub and use the radar data on both the Lowrance display and a PC with OpnCpn.


Boris

[sv_pelagia]

"For those using smart devices to determine GPS position, please realize these devices rely on cell phone tower reception to supplement cellular device accuracy."

Hmmm...My android internal GPS (with no SIM and no wifi) gives the same location (within 0-10m) as the GPS on both my fancy Furuno and my Vesper Watchmate.

Can't say about Ipads....

[Tillsbury]

Originally Posted by garychurch

For those using smart devices to determine GPS position, please realize these devices rely on cell phone tower reception to supplement cellular device accuracy.

That's a fallacy that's many years out of date. Most phones have internal GPS to at least the accuracy of marine ones. Most tablets too (except for non-cellular iPads). However, you're not usually looking to them for your GPS position. If using a tablet or other non-marine device as a chart plotter, then you're going to be picking up NMEA data over a wired or wireless connection and you can pick up the GPS position from your fixed chart plotter, or DSC radio, or somewhere else. In the worst case you can pick it up from your phone. So that's three independent sources of GPS position over two different networks, which is a good start for redundancy. All of these will work accurately anywhere in the world.

Using internal GPS position from a cellular iPad or other tablet eats batteries -- always better if you have a cellular capable device to put on airplane mode and then enable wifi, saving battery power.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by sv_pelagia

"For those using smart devices to determine GPS position, please realize these devices rely on cell phone tower reception to supplement cellular device accuracy."

Hmmm...My android internal GPS (with no SIM and no wifi) gives the same location (within 0-10m) as the GPS on both my fancy Furuno and my Vesper Watchmate.

Can't say about Ipads....

Yep. Our android tablet's GPS is scary accurate. It has been spot on regarding our location and offshore buoys. It does use up battery power, which can be adjust with tablet settings, and we take an external battery pack for backup. We are only doing day sails so this is all we need at the moment.

We have also been on passage where older generation android tablets were used as a secondary navigation device. Worked real well and there was certainly no WiFi, and I don't think there was cell coverage, but the device did not have cell capability anyway.

Later,
Dan

[MultiCountryDon]

RM Axiom + Vesper AIS on the Beneteau, Garmin on the Tiara.
Had a full new suite of Furuno on The Tollycraft 44.

Furuno is #1
RM is #2 and very good.
Garmin is the least supported of the bunch and terrible customer service attitude. If you have Garmin and want to get back, take a phone or I-pad.

[AlanT]

I was very used to Raymarine on two previous boats, but my current boat came with twin 7212 Garmin plotters and I was immediately impressed with the ease of use, ease of configuration, auto plotting function and a number of other features. Admittedly the Garmin is "next generation" to the Raymarine E120s but yes, for me, Garmin all the way.

~Alan

[BHRice]

I use B&G Zeus 3 and love it. Have a handheld Garmin for back up which is also very good.

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by tkeithlu

OpenCPN on a small rugged laptop, separate monitor at helm. Backup nav on Garmin GPS and AIS. Position logged on paper chart each 1/2 hour. I'm not wild about glass cockpits for lack of redundancy, but realize that separate units take up a lot of space.

For those of you running Open CPN, how do you deal with the lack of reliability? Although I love it for route planning etc. It is so friggin glitchy on my macbook air I wouldn't dream of taking it to sea.

[David B]

Very happy with our Raymarine - works well, easy to use, rugged, reliable, and service anywhere. Tech tells me their support is the best too, and he fixes all brands.

[DeValency]

Originally Posted by unbusted67

I’m in the process of overhauling my electronics and I’m interested in hearing what everyone has been using.

My only requirements are that I need something that is rated for sub zero temps, I’d like a plotter that can take RNC/BSB and ENC, and I’d like something that can conveniently swap routes, tracks and waypoints via gpx to my laptop. It’s got to be a radar/sonar/plotter combo.

What’s everyone using? Garmin, Furuno, Raymarine, Simrad?

All these brands are good. Most sailors/cruisers I know prefer Furuno, B&G and Raymarine. I use all the three plus redundancy of Navionics on iPhones and iPads - however, iPhone and iPads will not survive with power for too long at sub zero temps unless warmed somehow (in your pocket or inside the cabin)

[SalingSue]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Hey Sue,

could you please share details on the screen you are using?

How many Gb charts and how do you serve them to the Raspberry?

Do you know if the Pi would get confused by two identical touchscreens (we have a catamaran) ?

Thanks,

Franziska (another big fan of OpenCPN)

One of these off amazon

https://www.xenarc.com/

You have to go through the specs, mine was IP67 and met some mil specs, so far works great, it also detaches easily which is nice if you’re on the dock or the hook for any good amount of time

No idea the space for the charts, the memory card for the pi is huge, amazing how many gigs a buck buys these days.

[Franziska]

Thanks!

Originally Posted by SalingSue

One of these off amazon

https://www.xenarc.com/

You have to go through the specs, mine was IP67 and met some mil specs, so far works great, it also detaches easily which is nice if you’re on the dock or the hook for any good amount of time

No idea the space for the charts, the memory card for the pi is huge, amazing how many gigs a buck buys these days.